


A Very Brief Career at the Hoover Institute

by deandratb



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Gen, does not depict it, mentions character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 15:28:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8166730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: The nine days Ainsley doesn't tell CJ about, before and after the death of Leo McGarry.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story does dwell on Leo's death a little, fair warning, but only from Ainsley's perspective.
> 
> Prompt request from [when-did-this-become-difficult](http://when-did-this-become-difficult.tumblr.com/).

**_Day 1_ **

By any unit of measurement, Ainsley’s first day at the Hoover Institute could not be called a success.

“That’s right,” her new supervisor says when she arrives, with a glance at his second-in-command. “You’re the RINO who worked for the President. Your office is right there.” Some things change, but the turf wars never do. 

Her assistant follows her in, shutting the door quietly. _Melissa has good instincts,_ Ainsley thinks. _Point in her favor._

“Are you all right, Ms. Hayes?”

She hangs her coat up. “We’ll start with the files they’ve given me for this week. I’m going to need you to organize my research as I go. Can you do that?”

“Of course, Ms. Hayes.”

“Good. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Wouldn’t be…what?”

“Okay. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“He called you a hippo.”

She shakes her head, almost smiling. Her skin is thicker now, though the posturing and sniping has never gotten any less irritating. _If they took the time they wasted on making everyone prove their conservative bona fides and used that to fix the country, so much more could get done._

“No, Melissa, he called me a RINO. Republican in Name Only. That’s a not-at-all-subtle jab regarding my work with the first Bartlet Administration. It’s also a misnomer; I’m capable of working with people I don’t always agree with–that doesn’t make me a Democrat. Anyway,” she adds quickly as she sets up her desk, “the rhino is a very respectable animal. They’re agile, they have a great vocabulary, the females are very nurturing…”

Ainsley cuts herself off when she sees her new assistant staring. “You’ll get used to me,” she promises, and lapses into silence. She should be asking herself if she’ll get used to **them** instead of the other way around, but it is only her first day. Surely it’ll get better.

**_Day 2_ **

It doesn’t get better. She’s getting attitude from all of her new coworkers except one, a young man named Connor whose husband brings him lunch every day. He’s sweet, but very green, and she doesn’t have time to help him when he needs it.

They have her doing an eclectic mix of PR and legal consulting, and she’s enjoying it, though they keep handing her the work no one else wants to do. She’s new; she understands starting at the bottom. _She remembers a terrifying basement and the dapper man who led her there the first time._

This office has a window, the heating and cooling systems seem fully functional–it’s certainly superior on a comfort level. But she can’t imagine any of these tense, snide people singing Gilbert and Sullivan and drinking wine out of paper cups to cheer up after a long day.

It makes her sad.

**_Day 3_ **

She hears about Leo on the news like most of America…though most people didn’t have as many embarrassing conversations with him as she did. When she arrives at work the next morning she’s unsurprised to find the whole office discussing his death.

What it means for the President-elect, the Democratic Party, the choice to replace him–she tunes it out. The last thing she wants is for them to see her trying not to cry. He was a great man, a true patriot, and though they lost touch at times between his busy career and hers, she misses him already.

_“Still fighting the good fight?” Leo had asked over lunch the last time they met._

_She’d laughed, glossed over the question, knowing that in most cases their definition of what that entailed was at odds._

Now Ainsley hears his voice asking her that in the most unexpected moments. She’s putting out a release about the results of a global warming study; she’s discussing gun control on a late-night segment. She’s eating delivery pizza alone in her apartment. _Still fighting the good fight?_

She’s crying over delivery pizza and remembering the way he teased her about the all-night pastry chef after Sam told him. Of course Sam told him; he never missed an opportunity. But it was Leo who refused to let it die.

For her last birthday he sent her a gift card to Bayou Bakery. _It’s still not pie in the Mess at 2am,_ the note said in his hurried scrawl, _but it’s pretty good. Have a great day, kid._

Ainsley can’t say she established lasting friendships during her time in the White House. They were in the Oval and she was in the steam pipe trunk distribution venue, so the opportunities for bonding were few. If things were different, she would call one of them to exchange condolences.

If many, many things were different, she would call Sam–but they aren’t.

So she doesn’t. 

**_Day 4_ **

Word has gotten around that she knew the Vice President-elect personally; she’s honestly surprised it took them this long.

“No, I don’t know the incoming President.” She shoves her way past her insufferable supervisor and takes refuge at her desk. 

“But if you knew McGarry, then you knew his deputy,” George presses. “Which means you know Santos’ COS.”

“President Santos,” she corrects him automatically. “I was acquainted with Josh Lyman, certainly, as I was with the rest of the senior staff when I needed to be. But we were never close, I worked with Counsel, and I’m not sure what you think I’m going to be able to do for you that you can’t do on your own.”

He’s scowling at her, prepared to continue, so she talks over his opening. “Melissa, do you have that report for me? I can read it on my way home.”

The young woman arrives in the doorway, nimbly sliding past George where Ainsley elbowed, and places herself between them. “Yes, Ms. Hayes. I packed it for you, along with the numbers you’ll need for tomorrow’s summit meeting.”

“Excellent.” She turns back to George, challenging him to fight her on this. “Anything else?”

She doesn’t give a damn if he’s got seniority. She won’t be his in to start a war with the new administration, and she’s damn well not letting him use Leo McGarry’s death to do it.

When he huffs off, Ainsley offers Melissa a quick grin. “Thanks for that.”

“Not a problem.”

“You really did pack the numbers for me, though, right?”

“Of course.”

“Does your resume list ‘accepting the premise of fake documents on behalf of your boss’ in your skill set? Because it should.”

“It’s no big deal.” Melissa lowers her voice. “He’s always like this.”

Ainsley sighs. “I was afraid of that.”

**_Day 5_ **

Leo was a good man; this she knows without question. He was also a close friend to the current President, and about to be the next Vice President, so his affairs come with much more protocol and complication than if he were a private citizen.

That must be why she was contacted by a stranger about his funeral, rather than whoever it was that thought to add her to the list. _Yes,_ Ainsley is already saying before the caller finishes their explanation. _Of course she wants to pay her respects, **yes, of course.**_

At work she is subdued, not interested in her colleagues’ pointed comments about her upcoming bipartisan panel. On autopilot, she makes phone calls and takes notes on legal challenges in Texas and North Carolina.

The work is what she came to do. She doesn’t need to love the place where she does it.

Right?

**_Day 6_ **

“Is everything okay, Ms. Hayes?”

Ainsley looks up and wonders how long Melissa has been standing in the doorway.

“Why don’t you come in and have a seat? Shut the door.”

Her assistant obeys, waiting expectantly.

“Melissa, you should really call me Ainsley.”

Her pause is comical. “All right, Ms. Hayes. Ainsley.”

“And I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“You haven’t said much, today. Or for the last few days, actually. It’s not like you.”

“I’ve only worked here a week,” she points out.

“Yes. Well, it’s been a memorable week.” Melissa replies with a shy smile, and Ainsley wishes the rest of the staff were more like her. 

“I suppose it has. I got some sad news a few days ago and I’m just trying to push through it,” she admits.

“Mr. McGarry?”

“Yes.”

“I’m very sorry for your loss…Ainsley.” Melissa pauses for a moment before giving in to curiosity. “Was he as impressive as he looked on TV?”

“He was.” Her lips curve. “But nicer.”

**_Day 7_ **

“You’re capitulating too much,” Janet tells her during prep. “Never concede their point. It weakens our position.”

“I’m not capitulating,” Ainsley argues back. “Our position is wrong. It’s not supported by the facts, and this study that you want me to cite has been debunked. I can’t go out there and pretend not to know that.”

“That’s what you were brought here to do. That’s your job.”

“And when they point out what I just told you? When they tell me that our evidence is nonexistent and we’re just making things up?”

“You refuse to concede their point.”

Ainsley stares at her. “But that’s ridiculous.”

“No. **That’s the job.** ” Janet sighs. “Ainsley, you’re representing our interests, the interests of the party you’ve fought for your entire adult life. Doing that to the best of your ability is why we hired you.”

She’s well aware that the new normal is more about spin than reality, but it offends her. The Republican party should be better than this anti-science, anti-facts maneuvering. Their values deserve an honorable defense.

_Go out there and call anyone with inconvenient evidence a liar? Refuse to acknowledge what they say if you don’t like it? That’s really their strategy?_

Beyond her devotion to honor, there’s the purely selfish fact that she came here to be a lawyer. To be the Hoover Institute’s lawyer. Or one of them, anyway.

She has no interest in being anyone’s idiot.

**_Day 8_ **

Maybe it will get easier, Ainsley continues to tell herself. She’s still getting used to the workload, and the culture.

It’s not as though the work is hard. More like dull, actually. Not a challenge.

That may be part of the problem.

“Melissa,” she finds herself asking before lunch, “why are you here?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Here at the institute. What is it that you’re working toward, here? Are you looking to advance?”

"I don’t think I’ll stay here forever, move up the ranks in this building…but I do like working in policy. I want to help change things. Make them better. I guess,” Melissa concludes slowly, “I’m here because I want to learn.”

Ainsley nods. That makes sense. It’s a reasonable answer, a smart one.

The melancholy follows her through three meetings and a conference call.

There’s nothing she can learn here that she doesn’t already know. _She wanted to help change things too._

**_Day 9_ **

She’s ready to fight the good fight again.

And she knows just where to find one.

**_Day 10_ **

President-elect Santos says yes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading my very first Ainsley fic. :) My love to [broken_hearted_bard](http://archiveofourown.org/users/broken_hearted_bard) for the advice that got this posted.


End file.
